Advances in surgical techniques and improved drugs that prevent infection and rejection have allowed transplantation of solid organs to become an effective treatment for many diseases. Transplanted organs include heart, intestine, liver, lung, pancreas and kidney. Kidney transplantation, or renal transplantation, is the organ transplant of a kidney into a patient with end-stage renal disease. Kidney transplantation can be classified as deceased or living-donor transplantation, and may further be classified according to the degree of relationship between donor and recipient, as related or non-related, and according to the number of human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-matches or HLA-mismatches.
The indication for kidney transplantation is end-stage renal disease (ESRD), regardless of the primary cause, defined as a glomerular filtration rate below a pre-determined level. Common diseases leading to ESRD include malignant hypertension, infections, diabetes mellitus, and focal segmental glomerulosclerosis; genetic causes include polycystic kidney disease, a number of inborn errors of metabolism, and autoimmune conditions such as lupus. Diabetes is a common cause of kidney transplantation, accounting for approximately 25% of those in the US. The majority of renal transplant recipients are on dialysis at the time of transplantation.
The major barrier to organ transplantation between genetically non-identical patients lies in the recipient's immune system, which can respond to the transplanted kidney as “non-self” and reject it. Thus, having medications to suppress the immune system is essential, however, suppressing an individual's immune system places that individual at greater risk of infection and cancer, in addition to the side effects of the medications. Recipients usually receive a mixture of three maintenance immunosuppressive drugs, including a calcineurin inhibitor such as cyclosporine A, tacrolimus or sirolimus; prednisone; and an inhibitor of nucleic acid synthesis such as mycophenolate mofetil. The latter drugs have side effects that include hypertension, nephrotoxicity, infection, and heart disease that contribute to long term patient disability and graft loss. In spite of modern immunosuppressive drugs, in some centers acute rejection can occur in 10-25% of people after transplant.
Generally transplant recipients will take immunosuppressive anti-rejection drugs for as long as the transplanted kidney functions. Even for a mixture of widely used immunosuppressives the cost can be high.
Preclinical studies have shown that conditioning with total lymphoid irradiation (TLI) and anti-thymocyte globulin (ATG) is advantageous for inducing tolerance after combined organ and bone marrow transplantation because the conditioning regimen prevents graft versus host disease (GVHD) as compared to total body irradiation (TBI). For a review, see Strober et al. (2011) Seminars in Immunology 23:273-281.
It is therefore of great clinical interest to develop therapeutic regimens that achieve tolerance and complete withdrawal of immunosuppressive drugs in adult transplant patients and without induction of GVHD.